Tine Thach is not only interested in research in wheat and plant pathology; she is also very good at it. In recognition of this, she was one of only five women from all over the world to be awarded the 2017 Jeanie Borlaug Laube Women in Triticum (WIT) Award. The award is given to promising women in the field of wheat science. The WIT award recipients were announced this week at CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) Visitor's Week in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. The award includes an invitation to the annual Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) technical workshop in 2018.

Tine Thach showed promise already early in her studies. Her bachelor thesis was presented and awarded a prize at “15 minutes of brain 2008” at a competition held at the University of Copenhagen. She completed her PhD in plant pathology at Aarhus University in 2015 under Professor Mogens Hovmøller, where she recovered and explored wheat yellow (stripe) rust (Puccinia striiformis) diversity in the past utilizing isolates from the historic “Stubbs collection”. This collection is hosted by the Global Rust Reference Center (GRRC) at AU Flakkebjerg, Aarhus University.

Currently, Tine Thach is a postdoctoral researcher at GRRC and part of a public-private partnership with the Danish breeding company Nordic Seed A/S). She manages large-scale field trials to test breeding lines against important wheat diseases for multiple disease resistance. She has also conducted SSR genotyping of yellow rust for early warning in Denmark and monitoring of yellow rust in international collaboration.

- I think that by working together and joining forces we can push things further to benefit the farmers and, in the end, achieve the overall goal of ensuring global and sustainable wheat production, says a pleased Tine Thach.

The Jeanie Borlaug Laube WIT Early Career Award provides professional development opportunities for women working in wheat during the early stages of their career. Read more about the award here and about the five international 2017 prizewinners here.

Sustainable Pest Management is one of the research areas in which the Department of Agroecology is particularly strong and from which results are delivered in line with national and global societal challenges and goals.

Agro, DCA

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